Max Matheson (Nick Stahl, Terminator 3 and Sin City) has had it pretty hard lately. He lost his fiancée to a car accident and blames himself and he just can't get any peaceful sleep. But maybe things are starting to look up when his father, Jack (William Katt, The Greatest American Hero) decides to reopen the ill-fated Mayflower Department Store (from the first movie) in New Orleans and wants Max to act as night watchman. Dear old dad wants the store to reopen in grand fashion and he doesn't want anything to get in the way of it, so he is hoping Max can keep things running smoothly, together with the store's managers, Jenna McCarty (Christy Romano, Even Stevens), Keller Landreaux (Lawrence Turner) and Ryan Parker (Jon Michael Davis). Jack's fears aren't unfounded, especially considering the recent disappearance of a young female employee and the fact that the last night watchman, Henry Schow (Evan Jones) went a little nuts and ate shards of glass on the premises.
Max spends his dark and quiet evenings patrolling the store and he soon starts to see visions of a girl in reflective surfaces. While these sightings are troubling, since the accident, nothing's been quite right for him, so he shakes it off. When he starts to see gruesome visions in the store mirrors of fellow employees of the store suffering violent deaths, only to have those visions start coming true in rapid-fire fashion, things get really complicated for Max. As he tries to make sense of things, his quest leads him to the missing girl's sister, Elizabeth Reigns (Emmanuelle Vaugier ( Human Target). The police investigating the recent mysterious deaths start looking at Max, meanwhile he starts unraveling the mystery of the ghost of a girl trapped in the mirrors who will keep killing until she exacts her revenge.
First off, Mirrors 2: Unrated does not shy away from gore, especially in the early parts of the film. Don't watch this one while eating in front of the TV. Since this is also the unrated version, expect to see a full-on nude scene by Christy Romano of Even Stevens fame, just one ill-fated store employee who falls prey to the vengeful ghost. While one particular scene looked a good bit cheesy, most of the death scenes were really well done and didn't have the over-the-top CG that can ruin special effects at times. There are some really clever scenes in the film where a person's reflection is looking back at them in such a menacing way that it will certainly chill you.
As for special features, there's a making-of featurette and one on the special effects, both of which were entertaining to watch, plus a handful of fairly pointless deleted scenes. However, for true fans of the Mirrors universe, also included on the flip side of the DVD is the original Korean film in which both films were based, Into the Mirror. While it is subtitled, Into the Mirror has some really arresting visuals and is a nice blend of both the first and second American films, holding closer to the plot of Mirrors 2, however.
While it's not the best horror/thriller film out there, it's okay and is far better than most straight-to-video sequels. I especially enjoyed seeing the sights of "New Orleans" since it was actually filmed in downtown Baton Rouge, LA and I easily recognized a lot of the locations. The inclusion of the original Korean film as well might make the price of admission worth a purchase for big fans of both the Korean and American Mirrors films, but it wouldn't make a bad rental for a dark and stormy night, either.
